I like your point about the interpretive context we often miss when Paul or Jesus or Peter or whoever is citing the OT — that often they are actually -teaching- by restating the text in a useful way. But this is why the Rom 3 and the Luke 4 examples are so telling — these are not places where the writer of Scripture is -interpreting- the passage but merely -citing it as authoritative-.

Honestly: I share your bias about formal translation vis a vis those of us who are not educated in the ancient languages. But I think this is why the NET bible specifically has so much value — it is because it renders a -sensible- and -literate- translation from the source to the English receptor, but it makes -clear notes- regarding dynamic equivalences and why certain choices have been made. Most of our favorite formal texts — like the ESV and NASB — often have inadequate notes from the translators, and we simply miss some of the dynamic choices they have made.

All that translation wonkery aside, here’s why I’m asking that question and thinking about this topic. I am concerened that we are participating in a kind of KJVO error when we start to call things “not the Bible” which are, in the worst case, simply lacking sufficient methodological consistency. You have not done this, so when I say “we” I mean “me and my friends”. And I was really sort of scouting out alternate thoughts so that I’m not hermetically sealed inside my own flawed brain-case.

Thanks! Hope you and yours are well.

You bring us some difficult issues that I am not settled on myself.

With regards to Christ’s use of the LXX, or any selective use of versions by NT writers, I would venture to say that their paraphrase of the text is often in concert with their understanding of the text, not so much their attempts selectively use the version that agrees with their argument. In other words, when people paraphrase or use a different version, it often evidences a deeper understanding of the message. We do this with Scripture from the pulpit all the time. I think Christ and the Apostles would often do this (such as the case with Matthew’s liberal use of the text) precisely because they understood the message.

This CAN be the case with modern paraphrases. Often, they will help us to understand the text much in the same way a commentary does (or footnotes in the NET Bible). Yet while the COULD give us a better understanding, they, unlike the Apostles and Christ, cannot confirm that this understanding is indeed correct. They are not inspired versions.

For this reason, I encourage people who do not study in the original languages to study FIRST from a formal translation and refer to the dynamic translations more like commentaries.

Does that make sense or did I miss the intent of your question?

Hope you are doing well Frank.

As a point of reference for this discussion, all of us in that discussion would affirm the basic principles of formal translation advanced in Leland Ryken’s the Word of God in English and have strong biases toward formal translation method.

However, because I am the house trouble-maker, I have been considering the passage in Luke 4 where Jesus reads from Isaiah and we see that Jesus is not reading the Hebrew OT but more likely the LXX because of the divergent rendering of the passage we find there. Yet Jesus reads the passage and tells the Nazarene Jews who are listening that the Scripture is there fulfilled — plainly calling the, um, variant form of the text “Scripture”.

And in Romans 3, Paul says that the oracles of God have been “entrusted” to the Jews — even though most Jews outside of Palestine were probably “entrusted” with the LXX and not the Hebrew Torah and Tanach.

So my question is this: if we can agree to your statement, above, that formal and dynamic equivalent methodologies have their place, and even some use can be found for paraphrase, how are we to assess whether or not a particular rendering of some passage yields, as your site says elsewhere, “authorial intent”? How can we know that some translation is a valid rendering or an invalid rendering? Should we even care?